


Valhalla Smells Like Her

by redstaronmyshoulder (CaptainAmelia22)



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Healing, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 07:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4170885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainAmelia22/pseuds/redstaronmyshoulder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is this the War Boys’ Valhalla?” he asks.</p><p>She laughs at that. “No, it is far better than that.”</p><p>Her metal fingers drift from the back of his head to his jaw and she pulls his head up from her breast, so that she can see his eyes. She smiles, like a benevolent goddess, and his skin shudders at her touch and the cool heat in her gaze.</p><p>“This is my Valhalla,” she murmurs. “And I have awaited you, Foolish Max.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valhalla Smells Like Her

_Fool_.

Her voice had joined the others-scolding, harsh, unwelcome-and he groans, squeezing his eyes closed.  

“No, no, no,” he whimpers, tears leaking from the corner of his eyes to mingle with the sand caked in the grooves of his skin. _She can’t be dead.  She can’t be…I-I saved her. Her and the Wives.  Please…I did.  Didn’t I?_

“Fool.  Look at me.”  

He digs his fingers into the sand and curls away from the voice, desperately, pointlessly.  How can he run away from her now?  She’s in his damn head.

“NO,” he snarls, fingers tangling in his hair, shielding him from the merciless sun and he twitches when delicate, feminine, callused fingers close over his wrists.

Flesh and blood fingers.

He bares his teeth in a snarl and rolls his eyes back into his skull.

The hallucinations are getting stronger.

“Fuck off,” he mutters, to no one in particular.  

Or maybe to all of them, clamoring for attention in the back of his skull.

Those fingers-made of bone and war-roughened skin-tighten around his and she sighs in what he knows is irritation.  His skin crawls in instinctual embarrassment at that, but he still doesn’t open his eyes or crawl free from the hole he dug the night before.  

It’s his grave, y’know.  

Has to be.

He’s dreaming of her now.

Fuck that.

She sighs again and then he feels her other hand-the metal one-stroke his cheek and he jumps.  

“Max,” she whispers, her lips close to his ear-almost as if she is kneeling over him protectively.  “Max, you’re being a bloody idiot.”  

This-this is not a dream.

This…

This is the War Boys’ Valhalla.

“Furiosa?”

She is smiling down at him, dark hair brushing her cheek bones from where it’s slipped free of the tiny bun she’d placed it in, and her eyes are soft.

Gentle.

No longer bracketed in shadows and anger.

“Did you send me to Valhalla, woman?” he rasps as she turns him gently in his grave, shiny new metal fingers gentle on his still-bleeding shoulder.  She smiles at the misplaced humor in his voice and reaches for a canteen at her hip.

“Not yet Fool,” she says, that familiar voice washing over him and setting his tired body at ease. Her eyes-that pale blue he remembers longing to see even after he left the Citadel-gaze solemnly down at him and he knows by looking at her, his outlook is not good.

He bares his teeth at her and chucks her under the chin with some dirty knuckles.

“Well, you better send me on my way Imperator,” he says, his voice fading, even with her water washing down his throat.  “I always knew it was the nightmares that were going to be my end.”

The last thing he sees before his vision goes black with a small crackle in his ears, is her, looking slightly hurt at his words but with her teeth bared back at him in a snarl.

 _You’re a damned idiot Max_ , she hisses in the back of his skull and her voice is like Jessie’s.  

Like Angahard’s.  

Like the countless others he’s failed.

 _You’re a damned idiot Max_.

He agrees with them, just like he always does.

It’s simpler that way.  

**

“Jessie.”

He whispers that name again, his cracked and bleeding lips grimacing around the word as if the pain it causes him, even now while unconscious, destroys him from the inside out.

She wishes she knew who this Jessie was.

Who _Max_ really is.  

She wishes…

Well.

“Jessie, I’m sorry.”

She shifts in her stiff wooden chair and continues massaging her shoulder, the flesh-and-bone fingers rubbing the scars and indents the leather straps of her prosthetic have left on her skin absently; her eyes never leave his weatherbeaten face, focus too intently on the lines bracketing his eyes for some sign of the return of his humanity.

Days, it’s been, since she dragged him out of the desert and back to safety.  

Days.

And still he doesn’t wake.

She wishes he would stop whispering that damn name.  That his eyes would stop rolling beneath the delicate shields of his eyelids.  

That he would just wake up and tell her he’s okay.

She wants him to be.

She wants him to be safe.

She owes him too much.  

With a sigh she runs her fingers through her hair; it’s grown out since they took back the Citadel from Immorten Joe’s freaks.  It almost touches her chin now.  

It’s a strange feeling.

Freedom…

“Max, you need to wake up.  The Wives want to see you, want to make sure you’re okay.”

Her voice is soft, it rasps on his name. On the word okay.

Both words are so unfamiliar for her.  

They taste like water warmed by too hot sun.

She wishes she could sleep…

But there is too much to do-a City to protect, a Fleet to lead and this man…

Always this man, whispering names she does not know and writhing in his borrowed bed.

“I owe you too much Max, to let you end this way,” she whispers in his ear, praying he will wake soon.

That finally this battle will end so she can move onto the next.

“You should rest, Furiosa.”  

Capable’s voice is quiet, drawn.

Her short red hair spikes up in the humid air of the infirmary and Furiosa reaches out to smooth some of the girl’s shorn locks in a habitual motion both women cherish.  Capable smiles and leans into her touch but isn’t swayed.

She’s the Head Healer in the infirmary now, something she takes quite a lot of pride in, and Furiosa supposes she has all of the Mothers (the Many and the Milk) to thank for that.

Healing suits this heartsick girl.  

Just as gardening suits the Dag and fighting suits Toast and cherishing the tiny nomad children suits Cheedo.

They have Max to thank for that too.

 _Freedom_.

Those sharp green cat-eyes glare down at Furiosa pitilessly and the older woman just smiles.  

“I will rest when he wakes from his, Capable,” she says, her hand falling back to her shoulder as her nerves once more begin to sing in agony and he twitches in his cot with a whimper.  “I owe him too much to leave his side now, when he’s in so much pain.”

Capable watches her for a second, her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth and for once the mask of her hard-ass persona of the Head vanishes to reveal the young girl she actually is beneath.   

“Furiosa,” she murmurs, her fingers falling to their Savior’s shoulders to rub lightly at the knotted muscles there, “There’s a chance that he may never wake.  That the damage to his mind is too much.  That…” she hesitates, her eyes welling with tears for a brief moment as she takes in the scarred body of the man who kept them safe through the Ride of Hell.  Furiosa doesn’t flinch at her words.  At her hesitation.

She’s been thinking the same thing since they brought him here, bloodied and mangled and sand-crusted.

That Mad Max may have finally owned up to his name.

“No,” she snarls to herself.  To the girl trying to comfort her.

To the man shattering to pieces before her.

“Fuck that.”

Her words taste like copper and sandy oil.

They taste like Hell.

It’s a better taste than sunlight and water.

It suits the likes of them.

Mad Max and Furiosa.

The Mad Man and the Warrior Queen of Valhalla.

**

Something soft brushes his arm.  He scowls at that and tries to move away from it.

The softness follows him.

Envelops him.

Smothers him.

_Max.  Max!  Maxmaxmaxmax **MAX**!!!!_

He screams, the noise ratcheting from the clenched muscles of his throat, to echo in his dangerously full skull.  

_**WAKE UP MAX!** _

“Leave me alone!”

The softness disappears as he writhes in agony, hands rising to clasp his aching temples and callused fingers grip his wrist, stopping him.

“Shhh,” someone whispers, their breath washing over the shell of his ear.  “Shhh, you’re safe Fool.  You’re safe.”  

He stills, every muscle tensing as he tries to remember why that voice-that name-makes his heart hammer painfully in his ribs.

Why they make him feel…

_Safe?_

“Can you hear me, Fool?” she asks, fingers stroking over his cheek and jaw now that his thrashing has stopped, and her voice is gentle.

Far gentler than he’s ever heard it.

“Imperator?” he rasps, eyes desperately trying to open to see if this is truly not a nightmare.

That it is not death.

She laughs at that, a hard bitter laugh he understands too well and a damp cloth wipes at the sand and grit still gluing his eyelids together.  

“No one calls me that anymore,” she murmurs as she bathes his face and dribbles a little water down his throat.

He sucks at it greedily-at the water and her words-and she strokes her thumb along the hollow of his left eye. That unfamiliar softness once more brushes his skin and he finally opens his eyes.

She smiles down at him, the expression unfamiliar on her lips and he gazes up at her for a moment, stunned.

“Hello,” she says, laughter in her voice and he stretches out a shaking finger to twine in the delicate dark brown curls drifting around her face.  Her smile stilts at that and she tucks a hank of hair behind her ear, something like embarrassment coloring her cheeks. “I thought I’d try something different,” she says, her eyes shifting from his and he grunts before tugging her curls wrapped around his finger lightly.

“I like them,” he says gruffly, his hand falling limply to the cot where it shakes for a moment.  “Suits you.”

Those cheeks darken further and she pushes away from him, anything to hide from the man lying before her that she actually cares what he thinks of her appearance.

It makes him smile.

“I’ll get you some water,” she says, her voice hard as she stands hurriedly from her spot on the floor beside his bed but he stops her from reaching for the prosthetic hanging over the back of her chair.

“No,” he snaps, heart hammering with a suddenly prevalent fear and his ears begin to ring as he takes in the straight line of her back and the soft curve of her hips.  The thought of being alone…

Of being abandoned-

“Don’t,” he whispers and she glances at the shaking hand gripping her wrist, his hold desperately weak.  

“Please.”

“Max,” she sighs as he tugs her gently towards him and his name falling from her lips soothes him in ways he is no longer familiar with. She settles on the cot beside him, her body welcoming the soft mattress in ways she didn’t think she’d ever understand. He shifts over for her, turning his body the better to accommodate hers and she welcomes his warmth, the hard desert smell of him.  

He reminds her of what she-they-must fight for in this broken world.

Freedom.

Peace.

_Redemption._

He gazes at her, eyes wide in the leathered brackets of his face, and he wonders what it feels like.

To be the harbinger of justice.

To be safe.

Furiosa gazes back at him, those pale blue eyes seeing too much. Seeing him.

He waits for her to ask questions, to try and find all she can about him.

He waits to see how she will hurt him.  Just like everyone else in this damned desert.   

“Just sleep,” she whispers after a long moment of the silence that says too much and she stretches her body alongside his, there on the narrow infirmary cot he’s been occupying for too many days; her hips press into his, warm and far softer than he knew they were mere months before and his hand settles on her skin, comfortably familiar as only those who have shared blood and death can be. She smiles sadly at him, her half-arm resting under her cheek and her fingers rest on his neck, keeping him firmly in place against her body. “Just sleep and I will keep you safe,” she murmurs as his shaking eases and his massive body settles firmly into hers.

He sighs in relief, his breath shuddering free of his chest and turns his face into her breasts, hands tangling into her shirt as he pulls her closer into his broken body.  She lets him, something he knows would never have happened once-upon-a-time and her fingers are gentle as she strokes his hair and neck. After a moment, as their bodies get acclimated once more to each other, he grunts and she places her head on his pillow, their faces inches apart; he reaches up to tuck another errant curl behind her ear, making her smile, that same, shy smile he never thought he’d see on this impossibly strong woman and this…

This is what heaven is, isn’t it?

Safe.

Warm.

With the person providing both things lying protectively beside him and smelling of sunlight and clean water.

“Are you going to kill me in my sleep, woman?” he whispers, his eyes growing heavy while their breaths match pace and her heartbeat soothes his into a steady cadence.

Her fingers still at the back of his skull with the dark humor in his words and she closes the little distance between them to press a kiss to the cracked surface of his lips.

“I like to keep my options open, Fool,” she whispers back and he falls asleep with a smile on his battered, weatherbeaten face, his body pressed desperately against hers. Like a child in his mother’s arms, when the night terrors grow too strong.

It is a long moment before Furiosa falls asleep, her eyes glazing as she listens to his easy breaths and she realizes as her own body relaxes into his, that in the time she’s known the man sleeping against her, she’s never seen him so relaxed.

It is a strange realization to have, for someone so used to living life on the edge. For not having anyone to share safety with and she shivers as her eyes finally close.

But despite this…

Despite this, it seems right.  For both of them.

Natural.

**

He wakes to her forehead pressed against his, her hand tangled in his shirt.  His fingers flex for a moment around her wrist as he watches her and she hums quietly in her sleep when his thumb begins circling her pulse point.  

The room they sleep in is dark, cool.  

Night in the desert.

And Furiosa sleeps with him...

“Who are you, woman?” he whispers, his voice rasping over the words and she presses herself closer into his body, with a soft murmur that almost sounds like Max.

His fingers don’t shake as much as they did when he first woke, he notices with relief as he moves his hand to stroke her cheek and for a moment he is content.

Content to simply stroke her golden skin and run his fingers through her soft curls which tumble over her forehead and across her cheeks.  

Her hair is dark.  But not black.

As he twines a soft ringlet over his index finger he finds himself remembering the Many Mothers.  Finds himself reflecting once more on the Valkyrie and how she and Furiosa had shared many similarities.

Her hair had been wild-nothing but dark brown waves and twists.

Would Furiosa’s be like that when it finally reached past her shoulders?

He hummed to himself, eyes darkening as he thought of this fierce woman standing over her people, metal arm raised and hair streaming through the wind.  

It was a stunning visual, even as addled as he was.

Or maybe because of how addled he was…

Well.

“Keep that thing to yourself, Fool.”

She’s smiling at him, sleep still clinging desperately to her, and he bares his teeth in a grin as she stirs, long legs rubbing against his, their skin flaring to wakefulness beneath the light blanket covering them.  

“Looks like your healers know what they’re doing, Imperator,” he growls to her, dark humor in his voice directed at the hard bulge between their pressed together bodies and she snorts.

“ _That_ was never a concern of ours,” she says, reaching between them to squeeze his balls and her lips curl in a dangerous smirk when his eyes flutter closed in response to her touch.  “If you want though,” she murmurs, her lips closing the little distance between them to rest against his throat, teeth nipping at the pulse beating frantically just beneath his skin, “I could have Capable take a look?”

He grunts at that, fingers spasming around the curls he still holds a little desperately now, and he rasps, “Kid’d probably chop ‘em off anyway.”  

Furiosa laughs at that, her strong fingers still gripping him tightly and he presses his forehead tighter into hers with a groan

“Keep your thoughts to yourself, old man,” she murmurs, eyes sparking when he thrusts a little in her grasp, hips rolling to press against hers and he mutters something unintelligible into the pillow they share.  “Besides,” she says, hand releasing him to smack lightly against his chest. “You reek of the desert. I’m not doing any of that until you take a shower.”

His eyes flash open at that, a little wild and more than a little dazed from her manhandling and she grins when he rasps, “Shower?”

“Come along, man,” she says, patting his cheek as she rises from the bed in her usual fluidly economical way that always leaves him a little stunned in her wake.  “Let’s get you back into civilization.”

He snorts at that, everything he wishes he could say about what “civilization” is anymore in this desolate, broken desert, held in that wordless expression of disgust and she glances at him with a sad, stilted smile on her lips.  

“I know, Max,” she says as she offers him a hand, a silent offering of peace and comfort in it’s delicate span, and her eyes lock on his.  

For a moment, everything they have shared passes between them.

The Rig.

The Many Mothers.

The Wives.

Immorten Joe.

Nux.  

Valhalla.

Hell.

And he sighs.

“Shower,” he growls, his callused fingers locking around his and she smiles a true smile as she tugs him free of the bed.  “Civilization.  Sounds like fun.”

HIs rasping voice does not hide the laughter-or maybe it does, it’s just that she’s so familiar with his particular blood-tinted view of the world that she knows he does not mean any of it-and she snorts.

“If you want, Fool,” she says, her fingers busy on the straps of her prosthetic, “I can throw you back into the desert where I’ve found you too many times for counting.”

He just grumbles back at her, a wordless grunt and she shakes her head before leading from the infirmary.

“Thought as much,” she grumbles back at him and he chuckles, the noise echoing in the high stone halls of the fortress she claimed for her own.  

**

The water is hot.

Blazingly hot.  

Granted, it smells slightly of iron and other unknown minerals, but it’s hot.

Max actually groans in pleasure as the water beats around his scarred and filthy body and she smiles to herself as she watches him; she knows what it is, to finally have water washing over skin that seems as dry as the desert creeping around them. She had that very same expression of base pleasure on her face when the discovered the bathing halls after Joe’s defeat.  

This is different though.

The man never expected to survive his trials.

Never expected to survive this Hell.

The look on his face is wild, frantic.

He is like a wild dog, suddenly given a scrap of bread and a gentle scratch on the ear.

Humanity, it seems, is no longer a ghost of his past.

She understands that.

As the water beats around him, hIs body once more begins to shake uncontrollably, his knees nearly buckling as he struggles to remain upright; she wonders when was the last time he ate or drank any decent amount of fluids.

The War Rig? With the Many Mothers?  Just before the coupe?

Surely not…

“Here, put your hands on the wall over your head.”

The water washes around her, soaking her clothes and her curls and he jumps when she touches him, his eyes dazed from the heat.  She smiles and pats his hip, nudging him closer to the wall.  “The wall, Fool, hold onto the wall so you won’t fall.”

She doesn’t force him from the shower stall, carved out of the golden-orange sandstone the entire mountain is made up of.  She will never force him away from water.

The look in his eyes as he gazes down at her, hands slowly rising to press against the coarse wall, is very much like the look she’d seen when he first fell into their lives.

Wild.

Broken.

Terrified.

“You’re safe, Max,” she whispers as the water beats around them and his shaking begins to ease.  She presses against him, reaching for the cloth and bar of heady soap Dag always made sure to keep the showers stocked with.  “Nothing will happen to you here.”

“So much water,” he rasps, eyes closing as he turns his face once more into the fall beating around them. “I forgot...forgot what it feels like to have water on my skin.”

She glances at him with a frown but doesn’t say anything.

There’s nothing to say.

It’s just what it is at this point.

A broken soul coming to realize redemption comes in many forms.

“I’m going to scrub you now,” she says, her voice gentle and she begins the difficult task of washing him.

Her touch is impersonal, gentle.  A mother’s touch.  

His skin shudders beneath her fingers and the coarse cloth she wields so patiently and his hands shake on the coarse stone he grips so desperately.  For a long moment they are silent-her concentrating on her difficult task and him simply focusing on breathing and remaining upright.  

She bathes him, washing the sand from every bit of his body and there is something like ceremony in her movements.

A priestess cleansing a sacrifice before presenting it before the old gods.

He longs to touch her.

Longs to hold her in his arms and let her keep him safe.

Instead he digs his nails into the sandstone and contents himself with watching the water wash over her, soaking her white shirt to the point where her breasts peek through shyly. Contents himself in her cool touch and gentle care.  

It is as foreign to him as the water washing through his hair, over his skin, washing the desert from every inch of his body.  

Contentment.

Such a foreign concept for the likes of them.

It seems like a blessing.

His eyes close at that realization and he huffs out a sigh, bowing his head to press against the top of hers, making her chuckle as he does.  

He doesn’t realize her touch has changed until her hands have drifted down over his flat stomach, following the trail of dark hair from his navel ever lower, and he grunts, peeking one eye open to watch her slender fingers brushing through the coarse hair framing his cock.

“What’re you doing woman?” he growls, his body stiffening in warning and she glances up at him with a small smile curling her lips.

“Calm down man.  We both want this,” she says, her voice almost as rough as his and he cages her between his hands with a soft growl.  

“Max,” she warns as he lowers his head enough to gaze into her pale blue eyes.  

Those eyes.

They see too much.

Know too much.

She makes his skin tighten and his body tense up, ever ready for a fight.

She knows him too well and he, her.  

And it scares them both, he realizes as he gazes down at her and the metal fingers of her prosthetic rise to cup the back of his skull, while her flesh fingers drift from his curls to the stirring heat of his cock.  

He knows her.

And he knows what this is.

“I know what you’re doing Imperator,” he says, eyes narrowing, their faces mere inches apart, the water beating around them almost hiding his words.  “And I don’t want you to do this if you think you owe me somethin’.  All right?”

She almost laughs at that-he can see her fighting it back-but instead she closes the little distance between them and presses a soft kiss to his battered lips.

“You are so stupid, Fool,” she whispers against his mouth, her tongue darting out to explore his lips and her fingers stroking his length firmly, making his muscles spasm and his hips grind into hers.  “You should know by now, that I only do what I want to do.”  

He grunts at that, eyes fluttering closed as her thumb circles him and the little distance between them closes as he presses her into the coarse rock of the shower stall.  

“Is this the War Boys’ Valhalla?” he asks, his head lowering to suck the water from her shirt, where her nipples press through the sheer fabric.  

She laughs at that, head arching back at the sensation his sucking lips and nipping teeth cause on her awakened body and she gasps, “No, it is far better than their Valhalla.”

Her metal fingers drift from the back of his head to his jaw and she pulls his head up from her breast, so that she can see his eyes.

She smiles, the benevolent goddess she is and his skin shudders at her touch and the cool heat in her gaze.

“This is my Valhalla,” she murmurs, her flesh fingers working him and her metal fingers stroking his cheek. “And I have awaited you, Foolish Max.”

Peace.

Peace fills him with her words and for the first time he understands what it is to be safe.

Safe in the Imperator’s arms.

And Valhalla smells like her-clean water and warm sunshine.  

  
  
  
  



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